AlMansoori outlines ambitious plans

UAE-based oilfield service company will open offices in Bangkok in the coming months and maximise its presence in the Far East market.

AlMansoori Specialised Engineering Services made waves with its international expansion last month. At a time when companies are jostling for space in the Middle East market, this UAE-based service company has made inroads into Egypt and is eyeing other new territories. When Oil&Gas Middle East caught up with the man responsible for the growth, Nabil Al Alawi, managing director of AlMansoori, he said that the expansion was just the beginning for the company. “We are moving very quickly in the coming months into new territories. Very shortly we will be opening our offices in Bangkok,” he said. The company has identified North Africa and the Far East as primary regions for expansion. “We are aggressively expanding, but we are also very selective of the new markets,” said Al Alawi, while revealing plans to maybe even enter Vietnam, where oil production has recently begun. Last month, the company also announced the opening of its Gulf Technical & Safety Training Centre in Egypt. The US $500,000 centre in New Maadi is spread over three floors and includes 15 classrooms, fire training facilities, offices and the latest high tech simulation equipment to cover all aspects of training within the oil and gas industry, said a statement. All courses delivered at the centre are Health and Safety Executive (HSE) approved with credited certification for participants at the end of the training. The centre is also reportedly the largest of its kind in Egypt, and there are plans to expand it in future. AlMansoori has earned a reputation with national oil companies for its excellent track record on safety. One of the aspects that set AlMansoori apart from the other companies in the region, according to Al Alawi, is its commitment to health, safety, the environment and quality (HSEQ). “HSEQ is a topic very close to my heart. I sincerely believe in knowing and understanding the health of my employees, as that is indicative of the health of my company. One of the first things that we devised in the company was a health monitoring management system for our employees,” Al Alawi said. “Based on the system, the employees are divided into four categories, where the best would fall into category A and the worst, i.e., anyone with heavy medication, like in the case of cancer, into category D.” The reason for this, Al Alawi explained, is that the company wanted the employees to graduate into senior management positions capably and healthily. “Companies most often hire people when they are just out of college and possibly in their twenties. When they put in the best part of 20 years into the company and are ready to take on a senior position, they must be physically capable,” he said. Al Alawi is as keen on the health of the employees as he is on the quality of the service contracts. With high oil prices, Al Alawi said, small service companies are mushrooming all over Abu Dhabi offering some tough price competition to the longer-established firms. Though he does not see all of them as offering quality service, he believes the industry will even itself out at some point. When asked about complaints made by small foreign firms about the larger agents and their tendency to act like badge collectors rather than facilitators, he brushed aside the allegations, stating that the foreign companies must do better research before joining hands with a local company. “No point finalising a deal in a pub and crying over it the next morning. Take a bit more time is my advice.”